ABSTRACT
Chapter 1 explains Humphry Repton’s structural color theory, which privileged shades of green or the “color of verdure,” as he called it. As a self-proclaimed landscape gardener, he anchored his position in the teachings of prominent art aestheticians and connoisseurs, even as he repeatedly insisted on the inapplicability of landscape painting aesthetics to landscape gardening. I demonstrate that despite Repton’s rejection of landscape paintings as a model for landscape gardening, and his submission to nature as the prime colorist, the colors in his garden designs were calibrated to match those of landscape painting—earthy green and blue and golden hues, the “artist’s favorite autumn colors,” according to theorist Uvedale Price. Repton’s color scheme eschewed fresh and bright blossom colors at least into the early 1800s—the latter part of his career. Green masses and voids were intended to propagate the experience of space and movement, as seen in the perspective drawings in his Red Books. To refine his watercolor palette and aquatint printing technique, as well as to demonstrate his fidelity to nature, Repton also relied on Newton’s color theory and his own light experiments. The chapter highlights other influences on Repton’s use of color, including nascent visual consumerism and social class distinctions. His practice of concealing or camouflaging “landscape improvements,” as landscape design was often called, and “undesirables” fostered the deception-versus-display debate.
